CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN OCCUPATIONAL ...

Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 9(2), 101-118, 2011

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH

COMPANIES: RESEARCH ON PRACTICE AND PRELIMINARY DESIGN SOLUTION

Robert Fabac1,* and Ivan Mance2

1Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb 1Varazdin, Croatia

2Department for Occupational Safety and Health, Fire Protection and Ecology, Hrvatska posta d.d. 1Zagreb, Croatia

Regular article

Received: 31. July 2011. Accepted: 19. September 2011.

ABSTRACT

One of the most prominent contemporary trends in formation of companies is the approach to development of a customer-oriented company. In this matter, various versions related to the intensity of this orientation are differentiated. Customer relationship management (CRM) system is a well-known concept, and its practice is being studied and improved in connection to various sectors. Companies providing services of occupational safety and health (OHS) mainly cooperate with a large number of customers and the quality of this cooperation largely affects the occupational safety and health of employees. Therefore, it is of both scientific and wider social interest to study and improve the relationship of these companies with their customers. This paper investigates the practice of applying CRM in Croatian OHS companies. It identifies the existing conditions and suggests possible improvements in the practice of CRM, based on experts' assessments using analytic hierarchy process evaluation. Universal preliminary design was created as a framework concept for the formation of a typical customer-oriented OHS services company. Preliminary design includes a structural view, which provides more details through system diagrams, and an illustration of main cooperation processes of a company with its customer.

KEY WORDS

customer relationship management, occupational safety and health, design, processes, structure

CLASSIFICATION

JEL: J28, M14 PACS: 89.65.Gh

*Corresponding author, : rfabac@foi.hr ; +385 98 562179; *Faculty of Organization and Informatics, Pavlinska 2, 42000 Varazdin, Croatia

R. Fabac and I. Mance

INTRODUCTION

Galbraith defines the process of organizational design as the process of harmonising the mission and goals of a company, resulting in identifying the structure of labour division and coordination of organizational units and employees [1, p. 5]. Organizational design is a process by which structural elements and elements of organizational culture are managed and arranged in order for the organization to successfully control key activities for realizing its goals [2, p. 10]. According to the legacy of strategic schools such as resource-based view, the authors [3] recognize that next to several main opportunities at achieving the competitive advantage, there is also market-focused resource integration, where market-facing units borrow resources from functional and product units to organize around market segments and customers. The latest approach in organizational design examines customer centric organizations [4]. An important element, especially in the sphere of organizational processes in customer oriented organizations is the customer-relationship management. Implementation of CRM demands systematic approach and represents a matter of organizational design. According to [5], CRM requires a complex, cross-functional integration of people, processes, operations, and marketing capabilities that is enabled through technology and applications.

Growth of service sector in economy has led to the fact that service firms with intensive customer contacts require specific adjustments in organizational design [6]. Therefore, the term "customer-induced uncertainty". When (customer) uncertainty is high then organizations must process new information and find creative responses. In this process, design is important and organization structures with more decentralization and less formalization are more capable of processing new information.

Health and Safety Executive's analysis is concentrated on five organizational functions which are relevant for effective system of safety management. These are: politics (its development and implementation); organization (development of organization for maintaining effective communication and promotion of joint culture which supports health and safety); planning (in order to reduce the risks and set standards); measuring of results; revision and review of execution (all aspects of organizational safety system are the subject of revision which provides feedback) [7, p. 153]. Occupational safety and health as a component of integral safety, demands a whole set of measures which must be implemented by business systems for the purpose of protecting their employees, and occupational safety & health services companies (OHS companies) hold a key role in the implementation process of these measures. Therefore, OHS companies, under the Occupational Safety Act can be authorized for [8]: drafting of risk assessment, testing of machines and devices with high risk rates; testing of working environment (microclimatic factors within the scope of physical and

chemical damaging effects ? noise, vibrations, air flow velocity, temperature, lighting, moisture, chemical damaging effects etc.), training for safe work, and issuing certificates on implemented testing and qualification training.

As OHS companies serve a large number of business systems in the Republic of Croatia, increase in the implementation level and application of CRM system in OHS companies would result in increase in the quality of their service, thus bringing better job safety in the whole of Croatia.

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Various aspects of practice related to occupational safety and health have been researched in the world through the years, e.g. [9-11]. Awarding of employees for their safe conduct was researched by Lauver and Lester [12, p. 169]. Anttonen et al. [13, p. 259] dealt with the impact of working in cold environment and methods of occupational safety and health in cold conditions. Grama analysed the demands regarding occupational safety and health by associating good practice with the reduction of human suffering, employers' losses and promotion of total organizational efficiency [14, p. 73]. However, when it comes to OHS companies, the subject of implementation of CRM has not been extensively studied, as well as functioning of CRM in practice and organizational design with CRM system. The first main goal of this paper is gaining insight into the CRM-practise in Croatian OHS companies.

CUSTOMER-ORIENTED ORGANIZATIONS

Many organizations have spent the last twenty years in an attempt to approach the customers by using the buyer-segment methods, "focus group" and by measuring the customer's satisfaction. However, simple placing the buyer in the limelight of the organization does not make the organization customer-oriented. It is required that the organization undergoes reorganization and that it is literally organized around its customers [4, p. 14].

Well-known "Star model" [15] provides the option to form basic guidelines of organizational design. Primary guidelines arise from strategy which is related to mission and vision, and needs and desires in design process are harmonized through related elements: capabilities, structure, processes, people, and rewards. If an organization oriented towards customers/buyers is being organized, then the stated elements acquire the necessary special meanings.

STRUCTURAL AND PROCESS DESIGN

Organizational structure is the system of relationships among people established for the purpose of executing specific tasks. Each organization and company has its own structure and individual authors favour "anatomy of organization" instead of structure. Structure is a dynamic element of company's organization, which forms the unity of all parts of company and integrates the use of all organizational resources [16, p. 215]. According to [17, p. 2], organizational structure should be realized as "...the sum total of the ways in which its labour is divided into distinct tasks and then its coordination is achieved among these tasks". Basic division of organizational forms, or structures, distinguishes at least two classes, mechanistic and organic [18]. This formulation makes a distinction between management practice, decision-making and formalization. While in organic structures, decision-making is decentralized, communication is less formal, hierarchical development is weak, the opposite mechanistic structures are more rigid, with vertical communication and a large number of strict rules [19, pp. 148-149]. Present types of structures are: simple structures, functional, divisional, project, matrix and other. Considering the fact which bears statistical importance, that most OHS companies in the Republic of Croatia are companies with mostly 10 to 20 employees and that their activities are mostly defined and described through legal regulations, it is evident that they all bear the characteristics of forming simple or reduced functional organizational structure.

In the process of organizational design, Buble [20, p. 6-7] stresses three basic approaches: exact formalized approach, approach through combining the economic theory and organizational principles and systems approach which strives to determine and resolve main issues of organizational design through systems analysis. Regarding the design process, some authors promote a set of cascading organizational design tasks and step-by step process for each task [21, p. 10]. Methods of redesign according to The Center for Organizational Design1

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include the stages of determining the course, participating and redesign, introduction and evaluation. According to [20, p. 23], four stages of organizational design procedures can be differentiated: initiating of design procedures, organizational research, organizational design and application of project.

Our research is focused on the entire sector of OHS companies and the implementation of CRM within them. This enables an insight into the existing condition which represents the starting point of organizational changes. Drafting the project of organization represents probably the most important stage of design, and includes the development of organizational solution through preliminary design and detailed design. Preliminary design, which lacks in detail, defines the concept of acceptable organizational solution within the context of design [20, pp. 122-123]. Drafting of general preliminary design for OHS companies with CRM system represent our second main goal in this paper.

While designing a production-oriented organization, in comparison with customer-centric company in the domain of structure, related to organizational concept, there comes to a switch of special orientation to: customer segments, customer teams, customer profit and loss [15, p. 31]. Of course, for larger companies, this type of modification will be more complicated and demanding.

Business processes are included among the key elements of organizational design. There is a well-known definition [22] of business process as a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. A process is a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with defined a beginning and an end, and also clearly defined inputs and outputs. Process is a chain of activities which turns different inputs into different outputs. Process is a construct or a skill for organization of work activities so that they can be executed efficiently and effectively, that they provide potential for competitive advantage, that they can be effectively managed [23, pp. 4-5]. Proper business process management ensures a preview of a complete process, identifies the owners, follows the process on every level until its completion, continually optimizes arranged resources, generates reports and controls and improves different parameters which are used for measuring the process efficiency. Process management implies harmonising of sub-processes, automation of activities, resource optimisation and defining and control of final output.

Business processes can be subjected to the activities of managing, improving, design, modelling and reengineering [24]. Processes change with the purpose of creating a more efficient organization, and what drives companies even more towards better arrangement and management of business processes is greater orientation towards customers. Business process management includes testing of validity of existing work practice (AS-IS image) and justification of potential changes (TO-BE image). Process improvement implies setting of business processes for the purpose of greater efficiency. This is often achieved through: determining the manner the process is currently being realized, understanding how others do it, judging the opportunity for changes including more efficient use of information technologies [25, 26]. Automation of processes is a frequent intervention, not too radical, and includes the use of computer and software as a means of assistance to employees or as their replacement for performing the business process [24]. Design or redesign of process implies large interventions which are undertaken in order to significantly improve the existing process or to create a new business process.

If we were to analyse the transformation of a product-centric company into a customer-centric company, then the most important process, which used to be new product development, now becomes customer relationship management and solutions development [15, p. 31]. It should

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be noted that solutions options relate to customer's inclination to buy complete solutions from their companies (packages, solutions) instead of fragmented products or service.

DESIGN OF CUSTOMER-ORIENTED ORGANIZATION ? CRM SYSTEM

Considering the aforementioned, that CRM system represents the main issue for customercentric companies; below we present the characteristics of structure and processes in an organization with CRM system. Introducing CRM system in considerable number of cases has a positive effect on business results, as the researches [27, 28] have shown. There is a series of accepted definitions of CRM, and one of the most meaningful was provided by Swift [29] who says that CRM includes efforts of the entire company which are directed towards a better understanding of customer's behaviours and acquiring opportunities to influence such behaviour through various forms of meaningful communication; with the purpose of constant improvement of possibility to attract new customers and keeping the old ones, and rising the level of their loyalty and usefulness.

CRM should be integrated into every activity of the company, therefore a simple product and/or service is not enough to satisfy the needs of a customer; relationship of staff with customers is also important, as well as well-dosed and unobtrusive marketing, post-sales activities within the scope of servicing, and other activities which include the interaction of customer with the person providing products and/or services. According to relevant analysts, CRM could be classified into several types [30, p. 24], or, to put it plainly, CRM consists of three components. These three components of CRM support each other and the success of the entire system demands their proper integration: 1) operational CRM-client database, 2) collaborative CRM-contact centre, i.e. customer service, web pages designed for customer

interaction, communication with clients via available media (e-mail, SMS, telephone, fax, mail, physical contact etc.), 3) analytical CRM-expert in CRM in terms of an employee with required knowledge, and various available CRM systems and applicative solutions.

Depending on the concept of understanding CRM, if we observe the problem from tactical perspective, which presents a more narrow point of view, then CRM is primarily about the implementation of a specific technology solution project [30, p. 19]. CRM systems in practice most often include purchase of software and hardware which will enable the company to save important information about certain customers. By studying the past purchases, demography and psychology of a customer, the company gets to know the customer's preferences. In this way, the company can also send specific offers only to those customers with expected high interest for purchase, which brings savings. By using the data carefully, the company can improve attracting the attention of new customers, cross-selling and up-selling [31, p. 35].

We would like to point out existence of globally accepted CRM solutions, such as SAP CRM with its functions2, Oracle CRM on Demand which consists of several separate units3 and Microsoft CRM Dynamics programme solution4. MCRM as expanded CRM is the latest innovation in the technological domain with the possibility to use mobile media (cell phone, PDA etc), which encourages the user to establish a dialogue with the company via mobile media [32, p. 236]. This personalized communication strengthens the relationship between the company and customers and shows that personalisation plays an important role in raising the quality of customer relations [33, p. 518].

Successful implementation and functioning of CRM has been widely researched in the world, e.g. [34-36]. Payne's research [5, 30] is significant as it reached results about relatively low success of CRM projects. CRM concept is often misunderstood in the minds of certain

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